Nurses Concerns About Physician Assistant Pilot

“Nurses Raise Legitimate Concerns About Physician Assistant Pilot”

“Nurses have raised legitimate concerns about a physician assistant pilot based on using American health workers at Counties Manukau District Health Board,” said Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today. Mr Powell was responding to the concerns raised by the Nurses Organisation reported in the Sunday Star Times today.

“In general, the concerns raised by the Nurses Organisation would be shared by many senior doctors. Piloting new initiatives are invaluable but more homework should have been done with this one.”

“Before considering creating new occupational groups, how the role of existing occupational groups, such as nurses, might be further extended to improve the effectiveness of health service provision should have first been investigated and trialled. If a gap between what is needed and the potential to fill it from the existing workforce still remains, then creating new occupational groups might then be considered.”

“The risk is that the physician assistant pilot might tell us very little because the assessment of it may be blurred by the fact that any successes might be more due to the calibre of the individuals recruited from the United States and because their work in Counties Manukau will be of lower complexity than their work in America. What makes good sense in a very large country does not always make the same sense in a much smaller country.”

“Too much hype has been given to this pilot. It is being implied that physician assistants are a ‘magic bullet’ to solve our senior doctor workforce crisis in New Zealand. Such an idea is absolute nonsense and out-of-touch with practical reality.”

“We are not opposed to piloting the use of physician assistants in New Zealand but it is important extensive homework is done first if the pilot is to be of practical use and not wasteful of taxpayers’ money,” concluded Mr Powell.

ENDS

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